Donald Trump: Will America Become Gay?

 

Last week, the United States held an election in which Americans were to decide who will lead their nation as president for the next four years. The choice was between the incumbent president, Donald Trump and immediate-past vice president, Joe Biden. In the hotly contested race, provisional results favour Joe Biden to emerge as the 46^th President of the United States. While the Democrats are celebrating their victory, the Republicans are questioning some of the events in the election week with President Trump making it clear he will challenge the results at the US Supreme Court.

 

Prior to his emergence as president, Donald Trump was hardly a name to reckon with in political circles. While his standing in the business world as a multi-billionaire was indisputable, his political credentials – if he had any – were not among America’s first eleven. Appearing at the onset like an unlikely candidate of the Republican Party, Trump not only emerged candidate of the party but proceeded to defeat Hilary Clinton who was the candidate of the Democratic Party.

Trump’s presidency was characterized by startling events and unconventional approaches to issues. He wasted no time reminding critics that he was not a politician. He reversed some of Barack Obama’s policies and was criticized at home as being bullish, dictatorial and rude. On the international scene, President Trump advocated American nationalism above international cooperation. Fresh into his tenure, he became obsessed with building a wall on the US border with Mexico. He pulled America out of the nuclear deal with Iran and ordered the assassination of the then top Iranian intelligence chief, Qassim Suleimani, whom Trump accused of having American blood on his hands. In the wake of Sulemani’s death, tension escalated between Iran and the US to the extent that some observers predicted a Third World War. In the Arab-Israeli conflict, President Trump did not disguise his support for Israel. At the fury of Palestinians, Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and relocated the US Embassy from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem. He engaged in a furious trade conflict with China and suspended US funding of the World Health Organization in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic which he famously described as the Chinese virus.

Clouds began to gather at home against President Trump. An opportunity for the Democrats to exact their pound of flesh appeared when it emerged that Trump had allegedly compromised the integrity of his office in an energy deal with Ukraine. It was alleged that the president delayed supply of energy to Ukraine in a bid to make the Ukrainian government release to him incriminating information about Hillary Clinton. In the heat that occurred, the US Congress commenced impeachment proceedings against the president. However, the impeachment did not sail through at the US Senate which was controlled marginally by the Republicans.

Notwithstanding President Trump’s unconventional leadership style, he was admired and supported by certain quarters in the United States and abroad. These were the Evangelicals who are a Christian denomination opposed to legalization of abortion and gay marriage and committed to the restoration of prayer in schools. Although Donald Trump had no outstanding Christian reputation prior to his political sojourn, he aligned well with the Evangelicals, promising to take God back to the White House and to return prayer to schools. In the wake of the COVID-19 lockdown, President Trump ordered the reopening of places of worship, declaring them as essential services, arguing that worship places could not be closed when drinking bars and strip clubs were open.

Because of these actions of his, Trump was loved in the Christian community in America and beyond with many seeing him as a tool God was using to purify America once touted as God’s own country. They also saw in him a reflection of their wishes to slow down the moral deterioration of the American society. Elsewhere, Nigerian Christians loved him for reportedly speaking against the persecution of Christians in the Northern part of the country. Many sought from him the protection that they felt they weren’t receiving from President Muhammadu Buhari’s government. He was however, despised by the Muslims for his stand in the Arab-Israeli conflict and for appearing to speak for Christians.

This contrasts sharply with former vice president, Joe Biden, who has been variously accused by the Christian community of supporting same-sex marriage and belonging to the same anti-Christian group as Barack Obama. Joe Biden is even declared in some quarters to be the anti-Christ whom the Bible talks about. For many Christians, therefore, the election was a contest between light and darkness, with Trump representing light and Biden representing darkness. This is reflected in the several prayer chains and fasting programmes undertaken to beseech God for Donald Trump’s re-election.

Given this irreconcilable polarization of the world over President Trump, it is not surprising that the campaign was hot and the election tough. Barring any reversal by the US Supreme Court, Joe Biden will be sworn-in as the 47^th President of the United States. The question to be asked is whether Biden will tilt American policy in the direction rumoured by the Christian community around the world. In particular, will Joe Biden restore gay marriage, abortion rights and ban prayer from schools? Will he also take God out of the White House?

As the world awaits what will unfold in the days and weeks to come, one lesson to learn from the US election is that no single president can stop a society from becoming what it chooses to be. If America chooses to be gay, no president – no matter how Christian he is – can stop it. Only Americans themselves can. People of all moral convictions must learn to ingrain these convictions in their children and cause their values to permeate the public system. They must realize that these children – voters, electoral officials, postmasters, and politicians of the future – will be the sole determinants of which way the society will fling. They should desist from thinking that a lone president can appear suddenly and reverse the moral trajectory of a society whose citizens are cast in their own ways.